NEW YORK (AP) - A judge gave the green light Thursday to a lawsuit
against police officers in the arrests of 700 Occupy Wall Street protesters
last year on the Brooklyn Bridge, but he dismissed the city and its top
officials from liability.
U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff in Manhattan said in a written ruling
that the marchers had adequately backed up their claims at this stage of the
litigation that they were not properly warned by officers that they would be
arrested on the bridge Oct. 1.
But the judge tossed out as defendants the city, Mayor Michael Bloomberg
and police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, rejecting the argument that the city and
its top officials had a policy of making false arrests designed to discourage
protesting.
City lawyer Arthur Larkin said the city was pleased that the judge found
neither the mayor nor the New York Police Department commissioner was liable.
He said the city was considering its legal options, including appeal, regarding
the remainder of the decision.
The judge began his decision by citing the contributions of people such
as Thomas Paine and Martin Luther King Jr., saying "what a huge debt this
nation owes to its 'troublemakers.'"
"They have forced us to focus on problems we would prefer to
downplay or ignore," he said. "Yet, it is often only with hindsight
that we can distinguish those troublemakers who brought us to our senses from
those who were simply - troublemakers. Prudence, and respect for the
constitutional rights to free speech and free association, therefore dictate
that the legal system cut all non-violent protesters a fair amount of
slack."
The ruling came in one of several lawsuits that resulted from the
protest in which protesters were surrounded by officers in the middle of the
bridge and arrested.
The protesters were demonstrating against financial inequality. Their
lawsuit seeks unspecified damages and a judgment declaring their arrests were
unconstitutional.
The executive director of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, which
filed the class action lawsuit days after the arrests, said the judge's ruling
was a "major victory in the fight for justice and vindication."
"This is a clear message in defense of free speech," executive
director Mara Verheyden-Hilliard said in an emailed statement.
Police said the protesters were arrested and given disorderly conduct
summonses for spilling into a roadway despite warnings.
The judge, in his ruling, said the plaintiffs had made an adequate
showing that police failed to give fair warning to the majority of protesters
that they would be arrested if they marched in traffic lanes on the bridge. He
said the protesters were further confused when police officers walked into the
lanes themselves and stopped traffic, making it seem as if it was all right to
be there.
The judge said the videos offered by both sides show that the police
officers "exercised some degree of control over the marchers, defining
their route and directing them, at times, to follow certain rules."
He said the use of one bull horn to warn demonstrators where to go was
clearly inadequate because "no reasonable officer could imagine, in these
circumstances, that this warning was heard by more than a small fraction of the
gathered multitude."
"Indeed, the plaintiffs'
video shows what should have been obvious to any reasonable officer, namely,
that the surrounding clamor interfered with the ability of demonstrators as few
as 15 feet away from the bull horn to understand the officer's
instructions," the judge added.